


paperbacks, pomade, and perfume

by hejustlikeshoney



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: a mistake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 14:23:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14696028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hejustlikeshoney/pseuds/hejustlikeshoney
Summary: The smell of his own house is most pleasant to Vassily Kuragin.It’s an odd mixture of scents, but when it hits him it gives him an unmatched sense of pride only a man with his ego would appreciate. He can separate it into smaller bits, one generic one for each child—Ippolit’s paperbacks, Anatole’s pomade, Hélène’s perfume. All three intermingled as one, the smell of the Kuragin household, of home.





	paperbacks, pomade, and perfume

The smell of his own house is most pleasant to Vassily Kuragin.

It’s an odd mixture of scents, but when it hits him it gives him an unmatched sense of pride only a man with his ego would appreciate. He can separate it into smaller bits, one generic one for each child—Ippolit’s paperbacks, Anatole’s pomade, Hélène’s perfume. All three intermingled as one, the smell of the Kuragin household, of home.

He opens the door and the first he can decipher is the perfume as his daughter greets him in the parlor with a tentative hug. Next is Anatole, coming down the stairs and merely waving before heading out the door, his hair freshly fixed. Then there’s Ippolit, whom Vassily must seek out himself, his eldest son, immersed in some nonsense book which Vassily would coax him away from.

It’s become routine, ever since his children blossomed into young adults. The onslaught of vanity in the house stems directly from Vassily’s influence, and for a while it fills him with joy to see he’s successful.

They listen to him, his children, everything he tells them to do, but, though he doesn’t know it, he’s wrongly placed too much faith and trust in them. It’s so easy for Vassily to simply marry them off to someone rich and believe they’ll be just fine for the rest of their lives. He’ll pay their married lives no heed, only check in with them every so often by some brief letter that requires minimal thought. 

The scent of the house slowly and subtly begins to change.

Hélène leaves the home, and something is lost to Vassily, though he can’t place it. She moves to live with Pierre and the emptiness following hits her father harder than he wants it to. He satisfies the emptiness by reminding himself that her marriage is doing the family a world of good.

On one occasion Vassily pays Hélène’s new home a visit, and as soon as he sets foot inside he senses the scent of lavender he’s grown to associate with his daughter. He feels oddly comfortable, enough that he seats himself on the sofa and relaxes until Pierre enters the room with a scowl and Vassily is forced to get up and greet him.

The prospect of Anatole leaving for the war comes into view, and Vassily does everything in his power to marry him off first. He cannot lose an opportunity for money if his own son is to perish at the hands of Napoleon. And, if it’ll benefit him in the slightest, to marry him off to the sister of a certain high-profile officer would be ideal.

The Bolkonsky abode is old and musty. The scent of incense is strong, floating to his nose from one of the many rooms and causing Vassily to let out a quick cough in his sleeve. He accepts a handkerchief from Anatole, whose casual air hardly covers for the anxiety built in him upon entering the house. It’s vastly different from what both men are used to, and for the first time, Vassily sees himself clearly in his son. The sensitivity to the world around him is evident in Anatole, and Vassily wants to be proud, though something keeps him from it.

They are greeted and stay there awhile, but the princess Bolkonskaya lacks something the Kuragins are acclimated to. There is no success, but of course it isn’t her fault. Anatole leaves for the war, and Vassily must find some other way.

Out of desperation and fear Vassily has his son marry the Polish girl. Charity is not something Vassily is known for, but the consequences he could suffer for not following through would be greater than the little sum of money he could gain from a well-matched marriage. It’ll be simple enough this way. He’s risked happiness once on his daughter’s marriage, and he can do it again.

Ippolit is perhaps the most difficult to deal with. He’s clumsy, obnoxious, and not half as attractive as his younger siblings. Vassily’s attempts to help Ippolit along and marry him off are not as vain. It’s the first time Vassily feels concern for one of his children.

Everything fails, so Vassily reassures himself there really is no point. Ippolit moves on, and so does Vassily, alone with his wife in the house now explicitly theirs.

He walks into the empty house and the stuffy smell that carries through the air has only small hints of the life he used to live. He can catch the scent carrying through the house, faintly. That is when he notices it—the sealed letter, placed on the table with immense care. It smells faintly of lavender.

He opens it, and the letter is written on Hélène’s stationary. The writing is not hers. 

Grieving, he places it on the mantle next to the rose-scented handkerchief—the same one Anatole offered him years ago. Both children immortalized by the pieces of their lives he keeps there until his own is through.

The vivid question presses his mind the rest of his life, the question of whether he shaped his children, or they shaped him.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading my greatest mistake


End file.
